Is Library Novel Idea or Fiction? : Services: The latest technology plays a major role in the mayor’s rosy vision for a new city library, but some worry that the innovations would move it beyond the reach of the poor.

SAN DIEGO —  Mayor Maureen O’Connor’s vision for a new “storybook” library may seem more like “The Jetsons” than “Snow White,” library science experts say.

Like Elroy Jetson, San Diego’s children could have access to computer networks and vast storehouses of research data not only from San Diego, but from libraries nationwide. And they may well be able to use this information while sitting in their bedrooms.

That rosy scenario will occur only if some serious hurdles can be overcome. First, the mayor’s plan to put the library on downtown’s Lane Field may run into legal complications with the San Diego Unified Port District, which controls the land. Use of such land must serve a statewide purpose, and it remains an open question whether or not a city library qualifies. There may also be battles with opponents who would prefer to place the new library elsewhere.

Secondly, once a site is decided upon, an even bigger hurdle inevitably will be the cost of the library. O’Connor has estimated it will cost the city $70 million, a figure spokesman Paul Downey said includes the cost of computers, terminals and other gadgetry needed to make the high-tech library work, in addition to what may be donated. But Steve Burke, spokesman for Sony Corp. of America, which O’Connor has said will supply much of the equipment for the new library, said he has no idea what it will cost but might know in a year.

Kenneth Dowlin, the librarian of the San Francisco Public Library has some idea what those costs might be. Dowlin, a leader in public library technology, has a budget of $140 million to build a library complete with much of the gear mentioned by O’Connor. The library, expected to be completed in 1995, will take up 400,000 square feet and, according to Dowlin, the new technology will constitute about $6 million of the bill.

According to several experts, initial costs are often high, with savings beginning to appear over time in the form of more efficient operations. Still, maintenance could be costly.

“I hear rumblings about how an automated system comes into a library and it is bought. . . . But the maintenance and upgrades have to be incorporated into every budget after that, and costs keep going up,” said Howard White, publisher of Library Technology Reports newsletter.

Access could also prove to be a sticky issue, experts say, with the chance that O’Connor’s high-tech dream could undermine the concept of a free public library and in effect exclude the city’s poor, who cannot afford the hardware or possible fees necessary to use what the new library might offer.

Exactly what the new library will be able to do also remains vague. Burke said O’Connor’s vision began with her visit last September to Sony’s Media World exhibit in Tokyo, where O’Connor was wowed by the show. Planning for the new technology has not begun.

“The next step is for our engineers and personnel here in the States to speak more specifically about how technology might be used in the storybook library,” Burke said. “That could be a fairly time-consuming process.”

Other companies have been exploring the same kinds of technology. The revolution in systems suitable for library use has involved such technology giants as IBM, Apple and Hewlett-Packard. The city hasn’t asked for bids from other companies, however, because Downey said it isn’t necessary. The mayor approached Sony founder Akio Morita with the idea of using Sony equipment and, in a handshake agreement, Sony executives agreed to donate some hardware and match city purchases for more, Downey said.

“If any other company wants to join in, they will be welcome with open arms,” Downey said. “We hope American companies will be involved, but Sony has the reputation for the finest high-tech equipment anywhere.”

Downey also said library fund-raising chairman Mike Madigan is actively seeking similar donations from other companies.

Although Burke said Sony has never attempted anything like this before, other experts say the limits of what the facility might include will probably be defined more by financing than technology.

“The long-range vision is that, in 10 or 20 or 30 years, anyone in the U.S. would be able to read any book in the Library of Congress or San Diego or wherever in their home and dial it up on a TV screen,” Jim Graber, chief of the Library of Congress’ technology assessment and standards evaluation program, speculated. He envisions a time when library patrons will view motion pictures, television programs, text and graphics on television at home by hooking up with their city’s library computers.

Much of the new technology relies on the ability of laser disks to be stocked with copious information. A typical compact disk, for instance, can store the rough equivalent of 350 books. A medium-sized library could be contained on about 200 disks.

Some university and even secondary- and grade-school libraries have been using CD-ROM (Compact Disk-Read Only Memory) for several years, and entire encyclopedias have been digitized into laser disk formats. For example, someone researching Louis Armstrong might find a text about his life, photographs of the musician and be able to hear some of his jazz recordings all at the same time.

Librarians say that, in the near future, any student or other researcher will be able to type in a word like “jazz” from work stations around a school or from their homes, and see the entire bibliography of the library’s holdings on jazz instead of having to search laboriously through traditional catalogues.

“At USC we have 15 million citations,” Peter Lyman of USC’s library sciences department said. “Anybody on the campus network can log on without interrupting their work process to go to the library. . . .If they are in the middle of research, they can just look it up right away.”

However such technological advances require networking capacity.

“The local area network concept is something that will probably be of greater and greater importance,” White said. “It will tie everything together, PCs, telephones, CD-ROMs, whatever you can throw at it. A person sitting at a work station or a home computer could get it all.”

For example, The Enoch Pratt Library in Baltimore has established a network that connects branches with the main library’s much vaster holdings via work stations in each branch. Libraries in New Jersey, North Carolina and the University of California system have similar abilities.

On-line access to data is already important to scientists. Some journals are now published solely in electronic formats, especially in fields such as genetics or chemistry that change rapidly. On-line data is also available from a variety of services including news organizations.

San Diego library patrons may also be able to read, say, the works of Mark Twain without ever leaving home. The library’s holdings of Twain could be transferred to CD-ROM. A reader could then connect to the library’s system and see the text over the computer or television. Inter-library loans could involve nothing more than the electronic transfer of “books” over a modem.

Still, book lovers need not fear the demise of the book.

“If you spend an afternoon at the beach, you don’t want to carry your laptop computer there,” said Dennis Hart, the development officer for the San Diego library. “I envision that this new library will have new technology that will be wonderful for the public but will also have many stacks of books.”

It is possible, however, that patrons will need to make fewer trips to the library. With on-line access to the library’s catalogue, users could ask to have a book sent to them, or at least have the book held for pickup.

Still another of O’Connor’s ideas is to make the new library a kind of community meeting place with cable television and teleconferencing facilities. Hart envisions a time when people can meet and question a famous author via satellite.

“All of those things are currently happening in different places,” White said.

But, before the disks spin and the computers hum, several serious problems must be solved. For example, libraries will wrestle with copyright restrictions. If a copyrighted article is transmitted and reproduced easily to thousands of patrons over telephone lines, why would anyone subscribe to the periodical?

Librarians also will have to become teachers so they can show patrons how to use the new technology.

At least part of existing collections will have to be electronically scanned into digital forms, experts say, and such scanning processes can be expensive.

Plus, technology will have to be standardized, Graber said, recalling the Beta versus VHS battles of early videocassette recorders.

Then there are the costs patrons might have to incur to make good use of such a library. For example, studies have shown that text is better understood by readers when it is printed rather than displayed on current computer or television screens. Computers with high-definition screens or high-definition televisions might become necessary for remote library users. Those costs are unknown. On-line data bases are also expensive, with charges of up to $2 per minute or more.

The idea of a completely free library may wind up as antiquated as the Dewey Decimal System. Will the poor be left behind in a widening information gap?

“That’s a question,” said UC San Diego librarian Phyllis Murski. “Should people with more money have more access to information?”

“It may represent a barrier,” Graber said. “We have a long tradition in America that libraries are a truly free service. A lot of people in the library world would like to see this tradition continue. But some new services are costly, and more and more libraries are charging fees. This is very controversial, but obviously somebody has to pay for it, either taxpayers or patrons.”